<<aaaaanyway. long story shorter. chip made GJ choose to send the exact same team to malibu, or to forfeit their spot and all of their previous winnings at the tournament. GJ chose to go to panasonic. chip then gave the spot to manheim township. later he gave another spot to horace greely high school, whom GJ beat in the semis in washington. manheim township went on to win the whole thingie in malibu by defeating horace greely in the final>> This account is accurate, but I'd like to add some points as to why so many people were disturbed by what happened. First off, nowhere in the many signed documents which each team submits to the NAC was this "same lineup" clause included. It can be reasonably assumed that the much-advertised possibility of an all-expenses-paid trip to Southern California is part of the reason why someone might attend this tournament, and arbitrarily denying a prize to teams who have paid literally thousands of dollars for the privilege of entering the contest which generates the awarding of that prize is very dubious behavior. Secondly, after the decision to disqualify Grand Junction was made, their entire record for the tournament was erased; their preliminary and playoff games were retroactively declared 0-0 losses. Also, the decision to send Manheim and Greeley to DC in the place of Grand Junction did not appear to be made according to any systematic principles. The NAC playoffs are single-elimination throughout, and two teams who had each lost were revived and ended up playing the final. Later publication of the results on the Questions Unlimited website put Grand Junction in last place among the entire field and included these revisionist accounts: <<After missing the playoffs last year by a single question (on a "Supreme Court" decision), Horace Greeley High School from Chappaqua, New York came "ready to play" this year. They posted a 6-0 record, including playoff wins against Waramaug (CT) 375-305 and Coronado from El Paso, 350-250, to qualify for the trip to L.A. >> <<Manheim Township earned a free trip to "the Coast" by posting a 7-0 record, edging a surprisingly tough Ardsley team from Westchester County, New York, 325-280; breezing past a very good Andrean (IN) squad 380-260; and eclipsing Bellaire (TX) 360-310 in a hard-fought battle. >> So the top finishers at this "national championship" tournament were decided not by the matches but by Chip's subjective decision, signed documents were rendered meaningless, and the tournament summary contained lies and omissions designed to hide the ridiculous way of dealing with the matter. Given that other tournaments treat their customers much better for a fraction of the cost, it's amazing that anyone goes to NAC more than once. Now, of course, none of this is directly related to the truth or the gravity of the plagiarism issue. However, taken alongside the plagiarism and question quality issues, the outright hostile attitude to the clientele completes a troika of the best reasons not to patronize Chip Beall's operation. --M.W.
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